In late July and early August of 2012 I helped organizing the Festival Iberian Music 16th & 17th Centuries in Angra do Heroísmo (Terceira Island, Azores), a five-concert marathon during a week in the churches of the city that have organs. It combined the performance of Iberian organ music withRead more
The human voice is probably one of our most valuable treasures, to which so much wonderful music has been composed since the beginnings of our civilisation. April 16th was chosen since 1999 to celebrate worldwide the phenomenon of voice. Its aim is to demonstrate the enormous importance of the voiceRead more
To me, one of the finest examples of the relation and message that painting and music can communicate can be found in El Greco’s The Burrial of the Count of Orgaz and Alonso Lobo’s motet Versa est in luctum. Both works are pratically from the same period and both areRead more
On June 4th, 2014, I made some recordings with Ensemble Eborensis of the repertory we were singing at the time, taking advantage of the generous acoustic of the archaeology wing of the then Évora Regional Museum (now National Museum Fr. Manuel do Cenáculo), which used to be the archiepiscopal palaceRead more
This psalm-motet by Tomás Luis de Victoria has a powerful and strinking effect. His polychoral music began to appear around the same time as that of Palestrina and Super flumina Babylonis is a polychoral work, although the bassus parts are not always treated in a spatial manner. The work is set for two choirs,Read more
Manuel de Tavares was an early-seventeenth century composer, who was born in Portalegre. He held the post of maestro di capillain several Spanish cathedrals like Baeza, Murcia, Las Palmas and Cuenca (there is an brief text in Portuguese about this composer here).Read more
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s musical output is quite extraordinary. Although the numbers might suggest a tedious amount of works (and there are quite a few very similar in shape and thematic carving) there is still an enormous field of diversity and of sonic impact on the modern listener.Read more
The version of the Magnificat Secundi Toni set to the even verses is probably one of Manuel Cardoso’s (1566-1650) best known works and certainly one of most recorded ones.Read more
Fr. Pedro de Cristo (his secular name being Domingos) was a friar at the Augustinian monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra. He was probably born around 1550 and died on December 12th, 1618.Read more
This is another episode of the project Early Music Sources. This episode is dedicated to the Romanesca, one of the most widely known bass sequences in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.Read more